As you’ve no doubt heard a million times already, the 5-year period for completing your mandatory Driver CPC training ticks over this year. For many of you, we also know that you aren’t thrilled by the prospect of CPC training, and want to leave it all until as late as possible.
Instead of lecturing you, we thought we’d encourage by example, and compile some of our favourite moments of procrastination from popular culture. Hopefully the example set by these collective procrastinators will nudge you in the right direction, and get those Driver CPC classes booked.
The Simpsons – Tax Returns
It’s a crowded field, but there have been few worse role models in TV history than the Simpson family patriarch. So it proved in this classic season 9 episode, where Homer (along with much of the rest of Springfield) is scrambling to fill out his tax return on the last day of the window.
Having realised at 10pm that he hadn’t, in fact, already taken care of his tax return (“Look at those morons – I paid my taxes over a year ago!), Homer speeds his way past traffic lights – but not a hot dog vendor – to make it to the post office on time. With seconds to spare, he hurls his hastily taped parcel through the closing grates, landing it in the postage basket.
Homer’s laziness isn’t rewarded, however. Some time later, the IRS comes calling about discrepancies so serious that he’s forced to work as a mole to pay off his debts. There was no trouble for neighbour Ned Flanders, though: he was up bright and early on Jan 1st to keep the system working, and to help pay for “the folks who just don’t feel like workin, God bless ’em.”
Game of Thrones – Invading Westeros
Dany, aka Daenerys Stormborn, aka Daenerys Targaryen, the First of Her Name, The Unburnt, Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Queen of Meereen, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Protector of the Realm, Lady Regnant of the Seven Kingdoms, Breaker of Chains and Mother of Dragons…has a lot of names. The only thing longer than her full title is the time we’ve been waiting for her to invade Westeros – and it finally happened last season.
It’s been one heck of a journey, and we can’t blame her for most of it. Having gone from a pawn of her deranged brother to trophy wife, to owner of dragons and commander of armies, Dany has battled more than a few demons to be where she is today. She’s also spent a lot of time piddling around, moralising and generally not doing anything fun.
Her personal experience of slavery led her on a well-meaning, if distracting quest to free the entire population of Slaver’s Bay, instead of setting straight out to take back her homelands. But her morality seems decidedly dubious when she opts to crucify hundreds of people as an example, starve out a city, and roast her enemies alive. And when she finally does invade, a bigger threat has cropped up that needs attending to. Strike while the iron is hot, folks – and don’t count your dragons before they’ve hatched.
Shaun of the Dead – Sort Your Life Out
Shaun of the Dead isn’t just a modern comedy classic – it’s also a timeless parable about love, loss and zombies. Layabout Shaun is a serial procrastinator, still living the student life as an almost 30-something, enabled by his immature friend Ed.
Wasting hours on video games and Cornettos, Shaun forgets to book a fancy restaurant for his anniversary with girlfriend Liz, who promptly dumps him. Shaun then has to battle for Liz’ affection and against the zombie hordes who’ve taken over London. In an attempt to impress her, he decides to take his friends and family to the safest place he knows – his local pub.
As a direct result of Shaun’s laziness, he ends up losing most of his friends and family to his ill-conceived (if well meaning) idea, after the pub is broken into and burned down. He does get back together with Liz post-apocalypse, and zombie Ed is chained in the shed, but it’s not exactly the happiest of endings. If only he’d listened to housemate Pete a bit earlier, and sorted his frickin’ life out.
South Park – The Losing Edge
The scatological satire isn’t to everyone’s taste, but this episode in particular has gone down in TV folklore. In order to avoid spending their whole summer playing softball, the South Park kids attempt to play as badly as possible in the regional tournament. The problem is that every other team is trying to do the same thing, and they’re all much better at not scoring any runs.
As a result, Stan, Kyle and the others go on a spectacularly unspectacular winning streak, taking them all the way to the regional finals, and a chance to play in a national competition. They are cheered all the way by Stan’s oblivious dad Randy, who uses every match as an opportunity to get extremely drunk, taunt, and pick fights with the opposing team’s parents.
The two worst teams at being bad face off in the final, and South Park are winning (i.e. losing) comfortably. They’re all set to go to the finals, until Randy starts picking a fight with the immortal ‘Batdad’, an opposing parent of legend.
Beaten within an inch of his life, Randy is on the verge of being escorted away – until the kids goad him into continuing the fight, and getting his team disqualified. His retort to the police – “I’m sorry, I thought this was America?” – has endured for over a decade.